Beyond The Ripples (BTR) (beyonddaripples on Twitter and associated accounts) is turning up the press action. BTR has been – albeit sporadic – published on several different platforms. Carrying many of the same posts – and some specific to a platform. That type of ‘publication’ will continue, but with a far more regular beat than in the past.BTR has addedPinterest to its stable of Online Presence Tools (OPT) – with a twist. Instead of BTR: Pinterest, being solely occupied by the single-category Beyond The Ripples; BTR-Pinterest PINS in four categories, corresponding to four OPT’s, currently directed, produced and published, by the parent,NET500.CG:

Beyond The Ripples

YOSAKIME

O’fieldstream

i65 Design+Media

Beyond The Ripples … the same eclectic sorties of serendipitous wonder that I’ve been collecting for over 5 years, will now appear on thebeyondtheripples.postersous.com andbeyondtheripples.net500.com.Yes, I know … I am very derelict in my duty of posting regularly, my uncovered treasures. But, my dereliction has also provided an interesting perspective and blogging opportunity:

In the archives of BTR captures are several stories – that are time sensitive – meaning they are more historical in nature and thus now being placed in an interestingly different sub-category.

The blog abeyondtheripples.wordpress.com will become the BTR. Archives Revealed blog. High-lighting stories and bits of interest from the ‘old days’ of the Internet … and earlier technologies.

Commercial Entries: will now be presented in a BTR: Commerce, sponsored information format [see NOTE below for details on retained integrity!!]

At roughly the same time the beyondtheripples.blogspot.com will become the BTR.Commerce blog. BTR:C will highlight products, services and other commercially interesting information, I find of interest. For the sake of Full Disclosure, I will say that some of the commercial entries found on BTR:C will be promotions for sponsors.

A NOTE about potential sponsors on the BTR:C blog:

In no way will BTR:C be a whitewash for inferior commercial products or services. Any sponsor BTR:C acquires will be at our choosing and not the result of ‘trolls looking for Internet space’. Beyond The Ripples is a ‘SNEEZER’ .. NOT a ‘Wheezer’. Our commitment to serendipity finds remain the same. Even if the finds appearing on BTR:C are less serendipitous and more advantageous, you can be confident BTR is looking after it’s own legitimacy in order to remain relevant, legitimate and valuable to you the BTR reader.

YOSAKIME … is an OPT I write personally about my struggle with MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity); a growing disorder that is the result of a compromised immune system, no longer capable of buffering against the onslaught of the chemical wash humanity is forced to live, eat and breath. Much of humanity is already in its grasp and they don’t even know it.

I received an interesting email this morning from my wife with a link to an article In the Smithsonian’s online publication.

Her email’s subject was very sweet and pointed:“Nice article about Lafayette… not such a bad place. :-)” I opened the link.

There was the article. Sticking Around Lafayette Indiana, written by one of our local Purdue academics, who has become a published author of note, Patricia Henley. Ms. Henley is a professor of creative writing at Purdue University. She is also a native Hoosier. More importantly, she’s a reluctant native who has come to grips with her reluctance. She’s also found that living with it is quite survivable.

I, like Ms. Henley, am a native born Hoosier. Unlike her, my roots to Lafayette are of a closer proximity. Some 35 miles to the west, I grew up – up and down – the banks of one of the states premiere free-flowing streams. I dearly loved that stream and the wooded hills that were my childhood home in my formative years.

But, when I graduated from our consolidated High School, as a freshly minted ‘Indian’, my feet could not move fast enough to make tracks out of the Hoosierland.

I landed on the left coast, as many of my generation, but I went there to further my formal education, not necessarily by carnal imaginings. The residuals of a motorcycle accident at the tail-end of my high school Junior year, rescheduled my plans for an early departure. This peradventure provided my first glancing blow with Purdue.

Following a seven year wandering amid the hills and hollers of the homeground of so many Hoosiers – I returned home. Once again I returned to my roots, this time with a wife and young child in tow.

This homeground reunion was not on pleasant terms.

My father had been killed in an accident and offspring duties beckoned. The ‘plan’ was to remain for not more than 5 years and either return to ‘briar country’ or likely answer the call of the beckoning pillars of the Rocky Mountains.

That was 31 years ago.

A far nobler scribe once penned, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley”‘. So, too, have the wonders of lust for this wee warren mouse. Though I’ve worked feverishly to rewrite the words of the famous countrypolitan’s song, ‘Texas In My Rear View Mirror’, to navigate my way out of Hoosierville, on a fast-track, it has not happened.

I reckon, I too, am a victim of ‘terminal escape velocity’.

Ms.Henley spoke of the effort locally, “…underway to clean up … the Wabash River”. Interestingly, it was the genesis of this effort, for which I played a largely invisible, but pivotal, part that was also my own, Hoosier perspective, turning point.

In 1990 I returned to Purdue to acquire a degree. My ‘go card’ – which I had consciously avoided for 15 years – beckoned. Fisheries was my mission. But a combination of a arithmophobia and the realization of 12 year vision took over all else. I was introduced to the budding shoots of what became the Internet, in the first semester of my Freshman year and everything else was reordered.

Between a 1994 empty-folder-walk across the Memorial Hal stagel; 2.5 years of wallowing -sans life jacket – in the Bloodpools of Technology; 8 years struggling with the forces of academic bêtise; 5 years finding footing amid the slippery-slopes of natural resource advocacy and the first 2 years of a life with MCS, I got that degree.

Something else came along about the same time. Purpose for being a Hoosier and a reason to stay.

In the late fall of 1994 I began a regular habit of kayaking the Wabash for training and stress relief, that quickly gave way to pleasure. Amid the hundreds of hours on the water, I met several people. People who were canoeing, kayaking, walking, fishing, watching. People with whom I shared one very strong commonality: we all enjoyed the river.

It occurred to me that when people are personally involved with anything, that the ‘anything’ becomes important to them. Important enough for them to get personally – physically! – involved. This realization lead to a tagline I have used since then.

“People will see the need, when they feel the need.”

With this in hand I worked with others to introduce people to paddling the river. We didn’t get throngs to the water. But we never had a failure either. Each person, no matter how reluctant they were in the beginning – within minutes of entering the water surface continuum that is so much a part of canoeing or kayaking the waterways – became a lasting convert the first time out.

Once people touch ‘it’ they are hooked.They could not -won’t! – let go of ‘it’. They loft ‘it’ into high value status. Over time they begin to realize, just what ‘it’ is. They begin to realize the ‘it’ is not the river. ‘IT’… is life.

This is what the Wabash River gave to me. Something I already knew, but was unwilling to admit. That a good ‘life’, a fun ‘life’, an interesting ‘life’… yes, even a ‘life’ with fulfillment and enjoyment, is readily available anywhere. All you need is purpose.

Amazingly I found velocity for change to be anti-terminal and a great escape. Even in Lay-Flat Indiana

Ripples Win

If you're not causing Ripples, then you're being overly -possibly negatively- influenced by those who are. Control the Ripples and thereby your influence on Change. Know Ripples, Know Change. No Ripples, No Change.